This invention relates to a safety closure for a container. The invention is especially applicable to containers, such as prescription medicine bottles and the like, which contain materials potentially dangerous to children and other persons.
Safety screw caps and closures are generally known in the art, and suffer from drawbacks and limitations. According to one prior art safety cap, a separate tool is required to remove the cap from the container. If the tool is misplaced or not readily available to the user, the cap cannot be removed. As a result, in a medical emergency, the contents of the container may not be accessible to a person in desperate need. Moreover, the removable tool is subject to damage and wear, and may eventually become inoperable over a limited period of use.
According to another prior art safety cap, in order to remove the cap from the container, a relatively large amount of downward pressure must be applied to the cap while simultaneously turning the cap. This type of safety cap is generally difficult to remove, particularly for elderly persons, and may delay or wholly prevent access to the contents of the container in an emergency situation.
The present invention addresses these and other problems of many prior art safety closures by providing a closure which cannot be easily removed from a container without proper removal instructions by a person with adequate mental and motor capacity. Relatively little physical strength is required to remove the safety closure of the present invention from the container. In addition, the invention does not utilize a separate, detached tool which can easily be lost or misplaced.